Garden Of Love (E)

Question 1

Rhyme scheme

Answer 1

ABAB CDCD
Last line internal rhyme introduced
Until 5th stanza the pattern unifies the verse giving it flow and trajectory

Question 2

Voice

Answer 2

1st person seems to be that of the poet analytical yet compassionate observer

Question 3

Structure

Answer 3

5 stanzas/quatrains
Rhythm is complex 4 iambic feet per line-tetrameters
Catalectic metre
Irregular ryhme speeds up the meter in thr 3rd stanza breaks the rule

Question 4

Catalectic metre

Answer 4

Metric rhythm varied - 1st stanza lines 2 and 4 are shorter and notably emphatic lacking sufficient syllables to fit a regular pattern

Question 5

I laid me down upon a bank //where love lay sleeping

Answer 5

Love is presented as an allegorical figure “love”, the focus of the poem is sleeping so humanity will suffer

Question 6

Then I went to the heath and the wild

To thistles and thorns of the waste

Answer 6

Wild- representing the untamed and primitive desires
Alliterative ‘th’ slow down the pace
Setting is natural but free of negative description

Question 7

Driven out and forced to the chaste

Answer 7

The natural primitive human sex drive has become repressed,dubbed as sinful, Blake was progressive for his time vouching for free love

Question 8

I went to the garden of love// And saw what I had never seen // a chapel was built in the midst // where I used to play on the green

Answer 8

Garden of love- reference to the garden of eden, metaphor for free love
Chapel built in the midst- invasive building :oppresive regime of the church who hold power over the thoughts of the people
Past tense verb “used”

Question 9

The gates of the chapel were shut

And “thou shalt not” written over the door

Answer 9

The Ten Commandments comprises negatives and positives. The Church emphasised negatives, imposed restrictions and instilled a sense of guilt in many uneducated people. Blake was highly critical of what he saw as a distortion of the Christian message of love and use of religion as a form of social control

Question 10

tombstones where flowers should be

Answer 10

Written in the early stages of industrialisation the replacement of nature with graves is the exploitation of the poor by the rich,
flowers represent the generosity of the human which haven’t been able to grow due to the opression of conformity

Question 11

And binding with briars my joys and desires

Answer 11

sexual drives — are restricted and suppressed. The ‘binding with briars’ is a metaphor for the distorted teaching of the Church, which generates pain rather than a sense of God’s love. It is also an obvious reference to Jesus’s crown of thorns, and therefore symbolises pain and humiliation.

Question 12

Context

Answer 12

Post industrialisation 1794 songs of experience

Corruption of society church and nature

Question 13

Lexis and semantics

Answer 13

Briars- thorned plant biblical association to jesus’ crown of thorns
Garden of love- garden of eden
“Does laugh away care
Sitting under the oak” oak is a hardwood tree which the largest have been around for 200+ years

Question 14

Prosodics

Answer 14

Binds with briars my joys and desires - internal rhyme